ter Lord Delaware is constituted an adventurer and planter; and Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport were now commissioned by the council leading officers for the colony. Gates, Somers, and Newport, with nine ships and five hundred men, sailed the first of June for Virginia; but they encountered a fearful hurricane on nearing the coast, the description of which from the pen of Secretary Strachey, as published in Purchas, has become classic as an historic monograph.

By the charter of April 10, 1606, two independent colonies were contemplated. The first, or southern colony, was designed for adventurers in the city of London, and such as would join with them and choose a place of settlement within the determined bounds. The second, or northern colony, was appropriated for the cities of Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, and the western parts of England, and they also were to colonize within prescribed limits. By a royal ordinance a superior governing council was to be resident in London, consisting of forty members selected from among the friends of both colonies.1

After the failure of the Popham enterprise by the return of the colonists to England, and the branding of the country as unfit to live in, the adventurers became discouraged, the colonization scheme was abandoned, and no doubt the organization of the London Council, by the withdrawal of the friends. representing the northern interest from it, was seriously impaired. Gorges himself, after saying that the colonists "all resolved to quit the place, and with one consent to [come] away, by which means all our former hopes were frozen to death," adds that the work was "wholly given over by the body of the adventurers, as well for that they had lost the principal support of the design," by the deaths of the brothers Popham and Sir John Gilbert," as also that the country itself was branded by the return of the plantation as being over cold, and in respect of that not habitable by our na

1 Stith, page 37, says that, by the royal ordinance of March 9, 1607, revising the orders of Nov. 20, 1606, "there was a distinction and separation made of the two councils." The orders of 1606 created but one council, twelve in number, resident in London. The ordinance issued four months later enlarged the original council to forty members, and provided that both the northern and southern interests should be represented in it; that a quorum for business should consist of twelve, and not less than six of each party. (Hening, vol. i. pp. 67, 76.)

tion." "The arrival of these people here in England," says the Briefe Relation of the Discovery, &c., of New England, "was a wonderful discouragement to all the first undertakers, in so much as there was no more speech of setling any other plantation in those parts for a long time after." Captain John Smith, who was on the coast in 1614, six years after the Popham Colony broke up, says: "When I went first to the North part of Virginia where the Western Colony had been planted, it had dissolved itself within a year, and there was not one Christian in all the land," he means there was no settlement or colony of Christians there," the country being then reputed by your Westerlings a most rocky, barren, desolate desert." 2

But Gorges, in a review of this undertaking many years afterward, says that he himself did not despair in bringing to pass what he had really set his heart upon. But his attempts at colonizing what was afterward known as New England were, for a number of years after this period, a failure.

This letter is signed by Sir William Waad, who was Lieutenant of the Tower; Sir Thomas Smith, for many years Treasurer of the Virginia Company; Edwin Sandys, Knt., the successor of Smith as Treasurer of the Virginia Company; Sir Thomas Roe, Knt.; and Sir William Romney. They represented the southern colony in the London Council, their names being inserted in the King's orders referred to above; 3 and from the indorsement on the letter, it appears to have been regarded as an official communication. They also say that they have written to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Dr. Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter, both of whom were members of the Council as representing the northern colony.

The application is made to the Corporation of Plymouth, as though that body had been adventurers in the northern scheme with Gorges and Popham; and they are now solicited to lend their aid to the more promising southern enterprise. Plymouth was the headquarters of the northern interest; Gorges was governor of its fort; and it is quite probable that the

2 True Travells,

p. 46.

1 Briefe Narration, pp. 10, 11. 3 In the new organization of the southern colony by the charter of May 25, 1609, a new council was created exclusively for that colony, and these five persons were appointed, or retained, as members in that organization. (See Hening, vol. i. pp. 67, 76.)

prominent men there its mayors and its aldermen - had personally invested largely in the late adventure, and joined in fitting out the expedition which sailed from that port on the last day of May, 1607, with over one hundred men, to constitute the Popham Colony, of the ill success of which they are now reminded in this letter. The indorsement on the letter says that "the Corporation did not join in the undertaking."

Mr. BANGS presented to the Society a second "fourth edition" of John Guillim's "Display of Heraldry," and explained its publication as follows:

The author of this celebrated book was born in Herefordshire about 1565; was of Brasenose College at Oxford, and of the College of Arms in London. He died in 1621.

Only one edition of his book, that of 1610, was published in his lifetime. There was a second in 1632, and a third in 1638. In 1660, just after the Restoration, a fourth edition was published; and afterwards another fourth edition, so called, bearing the date of 1660 on the titlepage, but evidently not published so early, as it contains a reference to a grant of arms as late as Dec. 9, 1662. There was a fifth edition in 1679, and a sixth in 1724,-a copy of which is in the Boston Public Library. The Boston Athenæum has a copy of the third edition.

In the titlepage of the second "fourth edition" it is stated. that "since the imprinting of this last edition many offensive Coats (to the Loyal party) are exploded ;" and after the two dedications, to Charles II. and the Duke of Somerset, comes the following:

This inestimable piece of Heraldry, that hath past four Impressions with much approbation, had the unhappy fate in the last, to have a blot in its Escocheon, viz. The insertion of Olivers Creatures; which as no merit could enter them in such a Regiment but Usurpation, so we

have in this fifth Impression exploded them and incerted the Persons, Titles and Dignities of such as his Majesty (since his blessed Restauration) conferred Honour upon; that so the Corn may be intire, of one Sheaf, and the Grapes of one Vine. R. B. [Richard Blome.]

Upon comparing the two impressions it appears that the “exploded" are but eighteen in number, and are as follows:

p. 141. Roger Hill. He beareth, Gules, a Cheuron, engrailed, Ermine, between three Garbes, Or, by the name of Hill of Somersetshire, a very ancient Family there, of which is Roger Hill, one of the Barons of the Exchequer.

According to Noble,' he was named to be one of the Commissioners of the High Court of Justice to try King Charles I., but would not sit as such.

p. 146. Row. He beareth, Argent, on a Cheuron, Azure, between three Treefoiles parted per Pale Gules, and Vert, as many Bezants, being the coat of Sir Henry Row of Shakelwell, of Colonel Owen Row &C.

Colonel Owen Row (Roe), a younger brother, descended from Sir Thomas Rowe, Knt., Lord Mayor of London in 1568, was one of the Company of Massachusetts Bay in 1629; was one of the Regicides, and signed Charles's death-warrant; was Cromwell's Scoutmaster-General, — though Carlyle calls that officer William.

To the notice of him in Young's "Chronicles of Massachusetts," it may be added that at his trial he confessed and implored mercy, making a sufficiently pusillanimous speech; was convicted, but never sentenced; and sent back to the Tower, where he died Dec. 25, 1661.2

p. 148. Hon. John Thurloe. He beareth, Sable, a Cheuron, Ermine, between three Cinquefoyles Or, being the Coat of the honourable John Thurloe, Secretary of State.

"One of the expertest Secretaries," according to Carlyle; had Milton for under-secretary, author of a well-known Col

1 Noble's Life of Cromwell, vol. i. p. 433.

2 Noble's Lives of the Regicides, vol. ii. p. 150; Rushworth, vol. vii. p. 1426; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 297; Young's Chronicles of Mass. p. 94 and note.

lection of State Papers, altogether too well known to need much said about him.1

p. 182. Tobias Combe. He beareth, Ermine, three Lyons Purk in Pale, Gules, and is the Coat of Tobias Combe of Holmsted Youry in the County of Hartford Esquire, whose son and heir Itichord wee Knighted by Oliver late Protector.

Said by Noble 2 to be of "Felmeston Bury" Hets. Richand was knighted August, 1656.

p. 189. Sir Michael Livesey. He beareth, Argent, m. Lyon Has pant, Gules, between three Trefoyles, Vert, and is tus Civak, ba Michael Livesey of East Church in the Isle of Chippy is easy of Kent, Baronet.